The Three Faces of Eve

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A trio of ladies: the steady, wise wife, the sexual, often sexually predatory seductress, and the innocent child.

The wife, the wiser, calmer aspect, is someone around whom one could build a home life. The seductress is sexually experienced and independent. The third, the "child" (who does not have to be a child literally) will be an innocent, perhaps painfully so.

Note that the key traits for each is: making for a good life partner, not necessarily motherly (for the wife), innocent and thus not cruel (child), and sexy and/or seductive, not only passionate (seductress).

Contrast:

Madonna–Whore Complex where any individual woman must be either "sexual and attractive" or "virtuous and maternal", but cannot be both.

The Weird Sisters, where the personality distinction does not need to be present, and the three must be supernatural.

Compare and contrast:

The Hecate Sisters, where the "maiden" combines the naivete of the child with the sexuality of the seductress, the "mother" combines the liveliness of the child with the maturity of the wife, and the "crone" doesn't have a close counterpart.

Lime is youthful in appearance, overly cheerful, and a bit dumb at times, making her the child.

Cherry is extremely domestic and focused on being proper which causes her to appear more even-tempered and less impulsive than Lime or Bloodberry. Often when the other two are running rough-shod over the show's protagonist she is the one to stop and consider his feelings. She fits the wife archtype in addition to really wanting to be the protagonist's wife.

Bloodberry is more shameless than Cherry, and more sexual in her intention. Additionally, the is the only one of the trio with a mature-looking body.

Of the (first) three girls who are in love with Kurusu in Daily Life with Monster Girl, Papi is the Child because she is joyous, absent-minded, and a bit naive; Centaurea is the Wife because she is incredibly honorable and chivalrous, as well as unerringly loyal to Kurusu; and Miia is the Seductress because she is very flirtatious, trying to seduce Kurusu on multiple occasions.

Incidentally, the next three fit this trope as well; Suu is the Child, being commonly naive and innocent, Meron is the Wife, desiring a classic romance with Kimihito (albeit a rather bizarre "tragic romance"), and Rachnera is the Seductress, being the most openly sexual member of the whole cast, openly trying to hook up with Kimihito for booty calls. The 7th member of the harem, Lala, kind of sticks out, though. She's just weird.

Even the three main members of the MON group fit this trope, with the innocent and girlish Tionishia being the Child (despite her massive size), shy and demure Manako being the Wife, and laddish, teasing Zombina being the Seductress, traits that can be most easily seen during the chapter where they all go on dates with Kimihito.

In Change 123, Motoko's three alternate personalities follow this mold. Mikiri is the innocent child, Hibiki is the Hot-Blooded seductress and Fujiko is the wise, motherly wife.

Madlax gives us Margaret Burton as the Wife (gentle, quiet Ordinary Highschool Student), Madlax as the Seductress (deadly and sexy hitwoman with a heart), and Laetitia as the Child (creepy-lookingLonely Doll Girl). It's even more meaningful when we find out that Laetitia and Madlax are actually parts of Margaret's whole self, released when she killed her Brainwashed and Crazy father (and the first Madlax) in self-defense years ago. In the end, Margaret decides to accept her past and split herself again in three, adopting Laetitia as her little sister and releasing Madlax so she can live her life as she sees fit.

Illya is a bright child, because at the start she is a little immature and simple-minded (justified since she is a child), as well as optimistic and with great potential.

Miyu is a stoic and smart wife, who is much more passive than either Illya or Chloe, as well as supportive and protective of Illya and the mansion where she works as a maid. She also has domestic skills such as being able to cook very well.

Chloe is unmistakingly the seductress, since she is very open-minded about relationships and matters of love, and she kisses other people a lot (a requirement since she needs other people's energy to live). Also, while Illya wears fairly normal clothes for a young girl and Miyu's casual clothes are more boyish, Chloe's wardrobe is a little more risky.

Comic Books

In some versions of the Legion of Super-Heroes, Triplicate Girl (or Triad) has a different personality for each body; Triad-Purple is brash and outgoing (seductress), Triad-Orange is shy and quiet (Child) and Triad-Neutral is the stable figure who has to keep the other two together (Wife).

In the DC Universe series Gotham City Sirens, Harley Quinn plays up her clownish persona by acting ditzy and naive (child), Catwoman is pragmatic and sensible (Wife), and Poison Ivy is a vamp known for using her sex appeal to get her way (seductress). They team up.

Asuka is the Wife: she is intelligent, competent and dependable (when she is emotionally stable).

Mari is the Seductress: She is sexy, she knows it, she flaunts it (her weapons officer states she shoots off hormones like they were lasers) and she is willing to flirt and using her charms to get what she wants (even if what she wants is merely messing with someone else's head)

Asuka is the wife. She calmed Shinji down and her presence kept him emotionally stable.

Rei is the child. She had trouble controlling her emotions and her jealousy and she got irrationally angry and petty when she didn't get her way.

Misato is the seductress. She is sultry, sensual and loves teasing.

Film

The Trope Namer, The Three Faces of Eve, features Eve, a loyal and dependable housewife, developing two split personalities; first the seductress and then the innocent child.

Heroic Trio has a young ditz, a motherly type, and a (formerly) dark seductress as the main characters.

Deconstructed in Black Swan. At first glance, the older and Prima Ballerina Beth who is Thomas's girlfriend would seem to be the wife, the sweet, innocent Nina is the child, and the sexy and wild Lily would be the seductress. But it turns out that Beth is clingy and insane, Nina is very repressed and begins to mature throughout the film, and while Lily does enjoy casual sex she is not as manipulative or self-serving as Nina believed.

Van Helsing has the three brides of Dracula. Verona is the Wife - she is the leader and Word of God confirms that she is Dracula's favourite. Marishka is the Child - we don't see too much of her but she is very playful and Too Dumb to Live. Aleera is the Seductress - she by far gets the most Les Yay with Anna.

Brazilian movie Loucas pra Casar has a woman with long-lasting marriage obsession (wife) finding out her boyfriend has two lovers, an exotic dancer (seductress) and an overtly religious younger woman (child). She even discovers all three were proposed by the guy! Then at the wedding, she finds out all three were the woman Lost in Character, from the "sexual fantasies" she and her soon-to-be-husband frequently performed.

Deconstructed in the 2001 indie film Seven & a Match. The three female characters fall into these labels at first but they're all examined. Ellie the Child must grow up suddenly after her parents' sudden deaths in a car accident, but this leads to her doing reckless and foolish things. Blair the Wife is seemingly the Miss Perfect of the group, but she eventually cheats on her boyfriend and gets knocked off her pedestal as her own dirty laundry comes out. Whit the Seductress is an Ethical Slut but is about to get married, and has to face her friends' assumptions that the relationship won't last due to her history.

Literature

Twilight has Bella's Naïve Everygirl contrasted with Esme (wife), who warmly welcomes Bella into her home and later restores a cottage on the Cullen estate for Bella and Edward, Rosalie (seductress), who is jealous of Edward's affection for Bella because she the one who has always been desired by men, and Alice (child), who values Bella's safety above all and cares for her like a sister.

Helen and her two friends Millicent and Annabella who all marry into the same group of friends form this trio in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Helen is the wife, steadfastly devoted to her marriage even when it begins to fall apart; she takes her marital duties so seriously that she returns to Grassdale when Huntingdon is ill to care for him. Millicent is the child, innocent, idealistic, and very passive, needing others to take care of her. Annabella is the seductress, tricking Lord Lowborough into marriage with her beauty and luring Huntingdon away from Helen, the death blow for Helen's love for her husband.

David Copperfield gives us the three ladies whom David loved through his life. His First Love is Little Emily, the Seductress (aware of her good looks, may or may have not been a prostitute and her best friend Martha is one, ends up running away with Steerforth and is massively broken for that); his Second Love Dora is The Child (spoiled, sweet, naive, even nicknamed 'his child wife' and what drew David to her may have been his Mommy Issues since she was similar to his also very child-like mother Clara; and finally, his third love and second wife Agnes is the Wife (reliable, the "angel of the house", softspoken, a Proper Lady)

His Family: Roger's daughters. Edith fits the "wife" face exactly, nurturing and motherly and dedicated to her children to the exclusion of everything else. Laura is definitely the "seductress", as she is sexy, she dresses sexy, she likes to party, and she Really Gets Around. Deborah isn't quite the "innocent", as she is a hard-working social activist, but she is somewhat virginal and puritanical.

Live-Action TV

In Knots Landing, the three main women fill these roles perfectly: Karen is The Wife, the wiser, calmer aspect. Abby is The Seductress — sexually experienced and independent. Val is The "Child" (although she's the same age as the other women) and is innocent, perhaps to the point of naïveté.

Although all the same age the girls on Friends can be viewed this way, with flirty and sophisticated Rachel as the seductress, innocent and quirky Phoebe as the child and capable, responsible Monica as the wife.

Shirley is the Wife; she is not only the oldest, she tries to be the voice of reason and mediator wherever possible, as well as the group's moral center.

Britta is the seductress; she has the most varied sex-life and uses sex to get what she wants now and again, she is the most traditionally attractive, and she is the most cynical.

Annie is the child; she is the youngest and the most idealistic and naive, something she often gets made fun of for.

The three female leads of Mad Men: Joan is the seductress, completely capable of using her sexuality to get what she wants. At first glance, Betty (Stepford Smiler housewife) would be the Wife and Peggy (Plucky Office Girl) would be the child, but before long, childishness establishes itself as one of Betty's crucial qualities if not her Fatal Flaw, and Peggy displays a determination to leave behind the role of wide-eyed little girl and becomes a capable woman and Don's equal in a way Betty (his actual wife) never was.

The three ladies of The Golden Girls minus Sophia. Rose was the child (sweet and naive), Dorothy was the wife (calm and sensible) and Blanche was the seductress (sexy and fiery.)

With Prue's death at the end of Series Three of Charmed, Piper becomes the wife, eventually growing from insecure middle sister to capable eldest sister. She is also the first one to actually get married and have children. Paige is the child, being the youngest, newest member of the family and the least experienced in the ways of magic. Phoebe is the seductress, having the most active love life of the sisters.

The Stillman Sisters, evil blonde counterparts in season 6. Leader Mabel is the wife, ditzy youngest sister Mitsy is the child and flirty and provocative Margo is the seductress. They do indeed impersonate the corresponding Halliwell sibling.

In Saved by the Bell the three female leads qualify. Kelly is the Child; she's portrayed as kind to everyone and often too naive for her own good. Jessie is the Wife; she's the student council president and the most mature of the Six Student Clique. Lisa is the Seductress; as she herself puts it "my hobbies include dating, guys and dating guys".

Stable, domestic Tommie as a very dull Wife (ironic seeing as how she's eternally single.)

Video Games

Final Fantasy games in general have a pattern to their three playable females (and there are always three; see the Three Females Rule in the Grand List) are almost always represented as an Innocent Princess type, a Tough but Sexy Type, and a Perky Girl type. Occasionally this overlaps with the faces of Eve archetypes, although often times the Tough but Sexy character is not a seductress but more passively sexy.

Final Fantasy IV does a similar trick to the later VII in that it reverses the appearance and character of two of the girls. Rosa is pure Wife/Innocent Princess whose main desire is to be helpful, and who marries Cecil at the end. But Rydia looks sexy but is in personality the Perky Girl; Porom is a child, but hits people to keep them in line and is extremely clever and dangerous (being a brilliant mage and a spy).

Lenna, the wife/innocent princess. Her main plots are about her family, specifically her quest to rescue her father, her backstory about her mother, and her connection to drakes, for which she will harm herself to any extent to protect.

Faris, the seductress/tough but sexy girl. She's a pirate who is shown as being sexually irresistible even when dressed as a man and passing, with most of her crew having crushes on her. She also tries to kidnap the princess for ransom money and climbs up rope bridges with her teeth.

Krile is the child, fourteen and has supernatural sensitivity coming from her innocence. However, she's very much not perky, with the end of the game revealing her to be actively suicidal once her desire for revenge isn't sustaining her. (She does get one comic setpiece where she gets into a slap-fight with Bartz, though.)

Terra is the wife/innocent princess type - despite being the least stable of the three, she's the sweetest and most compassionate, and pretty level-headed regarding her role in the story. No wonder her name means "earth".

Celes is the seductress/tough but sexy type - she's a Tsundere in her romance with Locke, and she's also the tough one, being a war general.

Relm is the child/perky type - Strago didn't even want her to be involved in any combat at first because of this. She's precocious and optimistic.

Final Fantasy VII has an interesting version of this. For starters, one of the three women is an Optional Party Member, and secondly, the two who weren't looked like they played one role, but in fact were the opposite:

Tifa, who looks the part of the seductress, is in fact most reasonable and sensitive — also the secret-keeper of the group (her last name, Lockheart foreshadows this).

Aerith, who looks the part of the demure wife, is in fact flirty, street-wise, and the most assertive in her sexuality.

Yuffie (the optional one) both looks and acts like the child and is naïve and idealistic (if not particularly honest or trustworthy).

Lightning (believe it or not) plays the part of the wife. She's the most motherly and caring of the group — particularly towards Hope and (much later) Snow. She is also said to have acted this way around Serah.

Fang plays the role of the seductress; she is the most flirty and provocative of the group, and is quite Hot-Blooded at times. Interestingly, these aspects of her personality originally belonged to Lightning (with Serah as the seventh party member and playing the part of the wife), but when Fang was made a woman, they were given to her instead.

Child - Leliana is on the ingenuous side of Ping-Pong Naïveté. She had been drawn into espionage and political intrigue by the sense of glamor, excitement, adventure, and it wasn't until after she was burned by the shady side that she realized she had relied on Marjolaine to shelter her from that so she could continue to innocently play games. Instead of becoming the jaded manipulative spy, she chose to preserve her purity of spirit by seeking sanctuary with a stable and nurturing parental surrogate, the Church of Andraste.

Seductress - Morrigan is cynical, instatly contemptive of others, knows her sex appeal and how to use it to her advantage. Before the end, she will try to seduce a Warden to get what she wants, whether or not that Warden has ever shown interest in intimacy with her, or even likes her at all.

Wife - Wynne is cool-headed, perceptive, compassionate, and far more worldly wise than the confined life of a Tower Mage would suggest. She's no stranger to giving and receiving pleasure in her relationships. Modest and pragmatic, but not overly prim, she simply flirts with more decorum.

Wife - Aveline is the only character to start the story married (although she is quickly widowed), and the only character almost guaranteed to end in a relationship. She's wise, honest, caring, no-nonsense, and a capable leader; she takes her responsibilities as captain of the city guard seriously and strives very hard to keep the men and women under her as safe as possible.

Seductress - Isabela flirts with everyone and makes no bones about her love of sex and no attempt to hide her past sexual exploits. She is the most provocatively dressed member of the party, and offers to teach Merrill how to do body-shots.

In Super Robot Wars Original Generation, resident Ms. Fanservice Excellen Browning makes up a group called the "Three Beautiful Sisters", consisting of herself, Viletta Vadim and Lamia Loveless. Lamia is the Child (due to her recent discovery of what it's like to be a human, made more obvious in Original Generations when she gains a Split Personality that sounds like a little girl), Viletta is the Wife (she's the sensible and capable commander of the SRX Team), and Excellen as the Seductress (bloody obvious).

Among Excellen's clones, this trope also applies: Alfimi as the innocent yet Creepy Child, Lemon as the sensible right hand of Vindel Mauser, and Excellen still as the Seductress.

The Highschool Girls team from KOF 2003 had Athena Asamiya as the Wife (more experienced membress, leader of the group, Idol Singer who sings to keep the spirits of her fans high no matter what), Hinako Shinjou as the Child (naive, Spoiled Sweet, a Cute Bruiser who wants to show how girls can do what they wish) and Malin as the Sedductress (Combat Pragmatist, outspoken, veeeeery short Magic Skirt)

Alternatively, in KOF 96 and KOF 97 there are some changes to the Women's Team's roster and they fit in here as well. KOF 96 has KasumiTodoh replacing Yuri as the Child, and in KOF 97 ChizuruKagura becomes a secondary Wife.

In The Legend of Zelda Oracle games, the three Oracles (shown in the page image) are Din, an outgoing dancer (seductress); Nayru, a gentle singer (wife); and Farore, a helpful intellectual (child). Unfortunately, the game which was supposed to feature Farore was cancelled. Incidentally, the Oracles share their names with a trio of goddesses in the series mythology (the goddesses of power, wisdom, and courage, respectively), but we don't know enough about them to know if they match the trope.

In Fire Emblem there are several all-female Power Trios, but the one that fits in the best is the Pegasus Knight sisters from Blazing Sword. The Wife is the eldest sister Fiora (who even tends to be overprotective and strict), middle sister Farina is The Seductress (strongwilled, materialistic, yet with a hidden gentle side) and the Child is little sister Florina (Shrinking Violet)

All of the girls that can potentially be fathered by Chrom count as this in Fire Emblem Awakening: Patient and serious Lucina is the wife, strong-willed and rough Kjelle the seductress, and clumsy, innocent Cynthia the child. Heck, even Chrom's wife choices themselves can be this: Robin and Sumia (wife), Sully and Maribelle (seductress), and Olivia (child).

Present with the Nohrian princesses in Fire Emblem Fates: flirtatious Camilla is the seductress (with some heavy touches of Wife since she's also very protective of her siblings and the Team Mom of Nohr), cheerful and energetic Elise is the child, and melancholy but compassionate Azura is the Wife. The Hoshidan princesses fit this as well; Azura is the wife again, sweet and shy Sakura is the child, and fiery and independent Hinoka is the seductress.

The three action girls who serve under the male lords fit as well: Takumi's motherly and skilled at sewing subordinate Oboro is the Wife, Ryoma's no-nosense and busty subordinate Kagerou is the seductress, and Xander's Cute Psycho subordinate Pieri is the Child.

Regarding the mistresses of Overlord II: Kelda would serve as the child (least evil of the Mistresses and the only one to actually love The Witch-Boy), Juno the seductress (Gold Digger) and Queen Fay is the Wife figure (the one most "Equal" to the Witch-Boy).

The NOL girls of BlazBlue. Noel is shy, innocent and idealistic (the Child), Tsubaki is level-headed and academic (the Wife), and Makoto is the most blatantly fanservicey (the Seductress).

The past arc in the Magic Guild girls too: Caelica the bright younger sister girl, Trinity the sensible, if bookish one, and Nine the fiery and buxom one.

Marle is the child, maintaining her naivety and innocence through most of the game.

Lucca is the wife, smart and sensible and always the voice of reason.

Ayla is the seductress, flirting with both Crono and Kino, a kiss ability, as well as wearing the least amount of clothes.

Visual Novels

Fate/stay night has Ilya as the Child (acts very precocious and is literally stuck in a child's body), Arturia as the Wife (partner to The Hero and eventually enters into a relationship with him), while both Rin and Sakura have different aspects of the Seductress (Rin is virginal yet very headstrong and independent, while Sakura is sexually experienced even if NOT by choice but emotionally dependent).

An alternative interpretation focusing on the heroines: Saber is the Child, unused to personal relationships and clinging to a childish ideal. Rin is the Seductress, competent and fiery but also insecure. Sakura is the Wife, sexually experienced and dedicated to the happiness of Shirou above her own.

Though "The Beach" actually muddles this a bit: while Azula can be brash and independent, she's actually really bad at flirting with guys. Ty Lee, meanwhile, is a bit of an (ambiguously) Innocent Fanservice Girl.

The Real Ghostbusters contains another Gender Inverted Example: The playful, jovial, energetic, child-like Ray, who shows little to no interest in women outside of grinning and blushing like mad around his old childhood crush, is the innocent; Peter, at the opposite end of the spectrum, is an incurable skirt-chaser and Casanova Wannabe; and the stoic, levelheaded, reliable Egon is the only one with a single, steady love interest.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold's Birds of Prey. Black Canary is the easiest to get a rise out of and has the hardest time acting on her feelings for Bats- innocent. Catwoman is the seductress (a given). Huntress, who's pretty reserved throughout the other two's bickering, is wife.

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